Sammy Davis, Jr. Studio Recordings 1970-1988

It was clear by 1970 that Sammy Davis, Jr.'s music was not selling well on Reprise, and that this was unlikely to change. His manager Sy Marsh decided a change was necessary. Berry Gordy, Jr.'s Motown seemed like a good fit. In the words of Marsh, "the world's number one record producer, who's black, has signed the world's greatest entertainer, who's also black". Part of the deal signed in April 1970 was that a new label be created, called Ecology, and be distributed under the Motown umbrella.

The first move made by Motown was to release the masters Sammy had taken with him from his last two Reprise sessions in October and November 1969. The material was largely covers of Blood, Sweat and Tears songs, and other popular music of the day, and was titled "Something For Everyone". The cover art was outrageous to say the least, featuring Sammy in the midst of what looked like his own personal harem. The album was a commercial failure, which must have given Motown some pause.

Davis laid down new tracks for Motown, although it appears that most were still being produced by his former Reprise producer, Jimmy Bowen. One single was released on the new Ecology label. Other tracks recorded were produced by Marvin Gaye with an eye to releasing a 'real' Motown LP. Motown engineers were also sent to record live concerts at Carnegie Hall. What happened to all these recordings is a mystery - the only details that appear here are of Motown recordings later taken across to MGM by Sammy.

After neither the LP nor the Ecology single sold well, Motown declined to issue another LP. According to Davis' 1989 memoir "Why Me?", Gordy told Marsh they didn't think Sammy had "the Motown sound". Marsh indicated that this wasn't exactly a suprise, and with the threat of going public over Motown's inability to make the Sammy situation work, subsequently talked Gordy into severing the relationship and providing Davis with unreleased material. And so the deal was reached which saw Sammy leave Motown quietly.

Despite the fact that Sammy signed with Motown in April of 1970, this session is dated to late 1970 or early 1971 by the content - "In My Own Lifetime" was from the Broadway musical "The Rothschilds" which opened in October 1970, and "I'll Begin Again" was from the movie musical "Scrooge" which opened in November 1970.

The single from this session (the only release on Sammy's Motown label Ecology) was released in March 1971. Once these recordings were bought by MGM, they were given the new master numbers 71L 3925 and 72L 3203 respectively.

These performances are studio recordings bought by MGM from Motown in August 1971. The master numbers listed are those given to the recordings by MGM.

Sammy Davis, Jr. signs for MGM Records

Once he had secured a release from Motown, Sammy Davis, Jr.'s manager, Sy Marsh, sought expressions of interest in signing Sammy, and eventually turned to a man keen to have Davis on his roster - Mike Curb, of MGM Records. Marsh's first priority was to get Curb to release the outstanding Motown material, although Curb had his own ideas about what material might be commercially successful.

Curb's first idea was that of pairing Davis with his own chorus of young singers, the Mike Curb Congregation, on a song that the Congregation had already recorded solo, "The Candy Man". The idea was totally unpalatable to Davis, who had to be convinced to record it, and after doing so considered that "this record is going straight into the toilet. Not just around the rim, but into the bowl, and it may just pull my whole career down with it."

Instead, the very reverse occurred. "The Candy Man" became the most successful single of Davis' career. After debuting on the Billboard Charts on 11th March 1972, the single remained there for 21 weeks, peaking at #1 on 17th June (where it remained for three weeks). MGM then appears to have taken some of the content brought over from Motown, added additional content recorded for MGM, and released the album "Now" in April 1972. It was also successful, charting at #11.

Alongside a still-famous appearance on 19th February on "All In The Family" in which he kissed bigot Archie Bunker, "The Candy Man" briefly reinvigorated Sammy's career. Despite this, subsequent albums on MGM through 1973 and 1974 were largely failures, coming as they did during a period in which Davis' career faced problems, some of a political nature. In July 1971, he had been appointed by President Richard Nixon to the National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity. He was also asked to go to Vietnam, as a personal emissary of the President, to perform for the troops, and also report back on solutions to prevent soldiers' drug addictions.

Sammy considered the trip (taken in February 1972) an honour, and submitted recommendations to the President upon his return. Davis duly appeared at the Republican National Convention in August 1972 in support of Nixon, hugging him in the process. Davis immediately received heavy criticism from all corners - from blacks, liberals and white racists alike. His live performances, and stints on television shows such as "NBC Follies" were less well received, and he felt alienated from the black community, a cause he had fought hard for during the 1960s. 1973 began a period of five years of heavy drug and alcohol addiction.

He would gain one more signature song, though, in the early 1970s - "Mr. Bojangles". This was another song which Davis only very reluctantly began including in his act (perhaps fearing its autobiographical potential), and once it proved popular, he recorded it for MGM. It soon became the closing number to his act and remained closely identified with him for the rest of his career.

None of Davis' MGM LPs have been directly reissued on CD, and there also remains some unissued material. Many individual recordings have, however, made it onto compilation CDs.

"The Candy Man" was on the Billboard Charts for 21 weeks, peaking at #1 (where it remained for three weeks). This was Davis' only US #1 hit. The release, MGM 14320, went Gold, selling over a million copies.

These recordings do not appear in any listings of MGM masters. MGM dipped into its Verve reservoir and took some alternate takes from Sammy's early Semptember 1964 session with Count Basie and His Orchestra, and re-recorded new vocals (complete with 70s-era affectations) over the top of most tracks. The resulting MGM album was listed as a "repackage" of the Verve album, although only 3 tracks survived unchanged from 1964.

These songs recorded for a Japanese commercial for "Suntory" Whisky, and were released only on an MGM promotional EP. "Chi-ki Chi-ki Sammy" is barely a song, and is simply the audio track of a commercial which features Sammy bopping along as he pours himself a drink!

The exact arrangements of Sammy's recording career from the mid-1970s onward are somewhat unclear. MGM was sold to PolyGram in 1972, and once they started to phase out the label, Mike Curb left to found Curb Records (which had a distribution deal with Warner Bros.) and formed the Warner-Curb label. Meanwhile, in 1976, PolyGram signed a distribution deal with 20th Century Records.

Therefore, Sammy's recording output from this point onward appears mostly on releases from Warner Bros., Curb Records and 20th Century. In the latter case, many releases were European only. It seems a constant was Mike Curb, who helped produce Sammy's few recordings during this period, which were mostly versions of TV themes. Davis also released live recordings of a concert in Australia in 1977.

The timeframe 1973-1977 saw Davis' heaviest period of drug and alcohol addiction. He became a somewhat unreliable and demanding live performer, and a cariacture of himself on such television shows as his barely watchable (even to Davis in retrospect) syndicated talk-show "Sammy and Company", which ran from April 1975 to early 1978. So it is not surprising that this period also saw Sammy's recorded output wane.

In 1978, Sammy's life began to turn around significantly, in part due to intervention from Frank Sinatra about Davis' substance abuse, in part due to intervention from Davis' own doctors about his alcohol abuse, and in part due to his involvement in a new production of the musical "Stop the World - I Want To Get Off". The production began rehearsals in April, toured from May to July, and opened on Broadway on 3rd August, 1978. The cast album would become Davis' second last LP release.

By 1982, Davis was back on top of his game, and had become a respected headliner again, touring the world to his former acclaim. But his time as a recording artist had long since come and gone. His final full length LP, a Country and Western album recorded in Nashville, was probably a labour of love for someone with a great affinity for all things Western (he had acted in several Westerns on film and television, and in his hey-day he was said to be one of the two fastest draws in Hollywood).

It did, however, provide easily licensable material for a million cut-price CD producers to use in their phony Davis 'Greatest Hits' or Rat Pack collections. This was a final indignity to a recording career that, until recently, has been criminally under-reissued on CD. Part of the blame for this lies with the various problems suffered by the Davis estate in the years following Sammy's death in 1990.

"I Can Do That" is a studio recording inserted (with applause) into Warner Bros' release of live performances at the Sydney Opera House in August, 1977 (see the Live Recordings page on this discography). The back-up vocals from this studio recording of "Showtime" were also included on that album over the top of Sammy's live performance of the song.

"I Heard A Song" is a tribute to great figures of then-recent American history, recorded for a special double LP featuring multiple artists which was released to celebrate the United States' bicentennary in 1976.

Two versions of the Alka Seltzer advertising jingle "Plop Plop, Fizz Fizz" were recorded, one a 'Rock Version' and the other a 'Big Band Version'. Each contained a verse of the song that the other version did not have.

Warner Bros. LP: HS-3214 — "Stop The World - I Want To Get Off!" Original Cast Album (1978)

Marian Mercer (v) on a, f-h.

Sources indicate that the cast album for "Stop The World - I Want To Get Off" was recorded during the show's tour on the road in May. From May to July, the show toured San Diego, Los Angeles, Chicago and Toronto, before opening on Broadway on 3rd August, 1978.